GOD’S LOVE-INSPIRED DISCIPLINE

Sometimes children may feel –rightly or wrongly—that their parents discipled  for reasons other than love. However, the Bible tells us that our Father God, who is our loving creator and redeemer, disciples his children because of his love for them. “For the Lord disciplines the one he loves” (Hebrews 12:6). But he disciples them in different ways depending on how they obey him. 

GOD’S DISCIIPLINARY-LOVE AT THE TIME OF CREATION

After the Lord God created Adam and Eve the Lord provided for all their needs in the Garden of Eden; they disobeyed God.  But because of his love for them, God disciplined them and made a way to redeem them. God told Eve she would bear children with “painful labor” and your husband “will rule over you.” Adam was told: “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.” But, “The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.” (Genesis 3). 

The sacrifice of an animal for it’s skin to cover the shame of Adam and Eve foreshadowed the sacrifice of God’s Son to cover the sins of mankind. For “without the shedding of [Christ’s] blood there is no forgiveness of sins” (Hebrews 9:12). However, pending the coming of Jesus Christ, the Law was given by God as a temporary way of teaching people about God’s atonement for sins,.

GOD’S DISCIPLINAY-LOVE AT THE TIME OF THE LAW

At the time God gave the law to his chosen people, Israel, God initiated a temporary way of atoning for sin, by the sacrifice of animals (Leviticus 16). But God would also disciple his people when they continued to sin. 

• SOUTHERN ISRAEL were some of God’s chosen people who continued to sin. They repented only after God chastened them by sending them into captivity in Babylon for 70 years. But the Lord gave them some peace of mind by promising them: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place” (Jeremiah 29:10).

• NORTHERN ISRAEL was another part of God chosen people, but they did not repent erven though God repeatedly warned them of destruction if they did not repent. They “stiffened their necks, like the necks of their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God.” Therefore God allowed the Assyrians to carry them away into captivity, not ever to return. (2 Kings 17:5-23).

The Lord said: “Whoever remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed—without remedy” (Proverbs 29:1)

GOD’S DICIPLINARY-LOVE AT THE TIME OF CHRIST

The Lord ‘s loving-disciple of Perter is an example of  how he may sometimes chastise his disciples. Peter (and the other disciples) abandoned the Lord; Peter  denied that he knew Jesus three times. But the Lord pained his conscience with guilt and him, then him  opportunity to repent. After he repented, The Lord encouraged him to “feed my sheep.” On the day of Pentecost, when the Lord filled the disciples with the Holy Spirit, Peter boldly preached the saving  gospel of Jesus Christ. About 3000 souls were save.  

GOD’S DISCIPLINARY-LOVE TODAY

Our loving Lord God tells us: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion…” (Hebrews 3:7). He disciplines all that he loves, because “he does not want anyone to be destroyed, for  failing to believe in and obey the Lord. “But [he] wants everyone to repent” (2 Peter 3:9). Because of his love, God may allow problem related to sickness. family, relations, employment, finance or some other problem, to chastise and cause us to repent, and to seek his help.

The Lord does not want anyone to sin; “but if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One” (1 John 2:1). If you repent and confess your sins, you avoid God’s discipline  and judgment. Because of God’s love, “If we [repentantly] confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9; John 3:16).